Rand Paul’s Harsh Letter to Trump Over Secretary of State Choices

President-elect Donald Trump may be looking into former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton to fulfill the role of Secretary of State. Conservative libertarian Sen. Rand Paul believes this will be a grave mistake. The Kentucky senator has recently written an aggressively charged editorial stating Bolton is an elitist and is no better than Obama, Hillary Clinton or George Bush. He believes Bolton perpetuates ISIS and Middle East conflict, and that he is “more of the same.”

In fact, Paul goes so far as to charge Bolton as a coward who has no problem letting young American men and women die for the country, but would never defend the country himself if he was called to. The cold letter can be read below:

“One of the things I occasionally liked about the President-elect was his opposition to the Iraq war and regime change. He not only grasped the mistake of that war early, but also seemed to fully understand how it disrupted the balance of power in the Middle East and even emboldened Iran.

We liberated Iraq, but today their best friend is Iran, their second greatest ally is Russia, and their third strongest alliance is with Syria. Trump really seems to get the lesson. Hillary Clinton never did.

Most importantly right now, John Bolton never learned and never will.

Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years — particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president.

Trump has said U.S. intervention in Iraq in 2003 “helped to throw the region into chaos and gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper.” In contrast, Bolton has said explicitly that he wants to repeat Iraq-style regime change in Syrian and Iran.

You can’t learn from mistakes if you don’t see mistakes.

Trump has blamed George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for helping to create ISIS — but should add John Bolton to that list, who essentially agreed with all three on our regime change debacles.

No man is more out of touch with the situation in the Middle East or more dangerous to our national security than Bolton.

All nuance is lost on the man. The fact that Russia has had a base in Syria for 50 years doesn’t deter Bolton from calling for all out, no holds barred war in Syria. Bolton criticized the current administration for offering only a tepid war. For Bolton, only a hot-blooded war to create democracy across the globe is demanded.

Bolton would not understand this because, like many of his generation, he used every privilege to avoid serving himself. Bolton said, with the threat of the Vietnam draft over his head, that “he had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy.” But he’s seems to be okay with your son or daughter dying wherever his neoconservative impulse leads us: “Even before the Iraq War, John Bolton was a leading brain behind the neoconservatives’ war-and-conquest agenda,” notes The American Conservative’s Jon Utley.”

Paul concludes the letter by labeling Bolton as a “menace.” On a recent CNN interview, Paul also reveals he is not a fan of choosing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the secretary of state role, stating he is very similar to Bolton. Paul claims if Trump picks either man, he won’t be sticking to the ideals he promised American voters throughout the campaign.